


lost in his eyes

by edwardnygmas



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Birdwatching, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Richie is a good friend, Stan's bar mitzvah, Stozier, family trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22248448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edwardnygmas/pseuds/edwardnygmas
Summary: A glimpse into Stan Uris' life and how he realizes he might be in love with Richie Tozier.
Relationships: Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 3
Kudos: 81





	lost in his eyes

Stan was known to be the quiet one in the friend group. 

He sometimes worried that his friends only invited him to hangout with them because they felt bad for him. 

On really bad days he’d think about them all hanging out without him, secretly out having fun while he sat at home alone. 

He knew it was unreasonable. He had been friends with Richie, Eddie, and Bill for years; they had practically grown up together. But Stan still worried that he was too boring for them, that they laughed behind his back about his Judaism and his birdwatching and the fact that he didn’t have any other friends. 

These thoughts would come to his mind when he was at home. 

Stan knew he was a disappointment to his parents, even if they never said it to him in those exact words it was painfully obvious. They wanted him to be the perfect poster boy for Judaism and it just wasn’t him. Sure, he believed in God, but what his father cared about was how well he could memorize passages from the Torah. Even when Stan stayed up all night, reading the words over and over until his eyes burned, he just could never get it right, and his father’s shame was always looming over Stan. 

Being at home was something Stan dreaded, and he was always looking forward to going out with his friends and having fun. Being with them, the “Losers”, was always the highlight of his day. It was so easy to forget everything else when he was around them, and to be able to laugh and smile. But alone in his room, with his parents one room away, their disappointment consumed his mind, and he couldn’t help but worry he was a disappointment to his friends too. 

And then there was the other thing that Stan found himself thinking about more and more as time went on. 

At first he had tried to deny it, or at least not think about it. Anytime the thought would come to his mind, he would grab the Torah and read until he felt dizzy. 

Stan couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he acknowledged his feelings, or even when the feelings had formed, because he had known Richie since he was young, and hadn’t always thought about him in that way. 

With his family being as religious as they were, Stan was practically doomed. 

He knew “coming out” to them was a joke, no, worse than that, a fucking deathwish.

They’d kick him out faster than he could tell them he was sorry, and then where would he go? 

He’d humored the thought more and more recently, sometimes he’d go over the scenario in his head at school, in his advanced classes where he didn’t see any of his friends. 

While everyone else was working or reading, he’d think what exactly he would say to his parents, imagine their reactions. 

His mom would cry, his father would yell. 

His father had never been abusive, he’d never hit Stan before, but Stan thought that this might push him over that line. 

But then came the depressing part. Once his parents would kick him out, where would he go? 

He wasn’t stupid, he knew what happened to those people in Derry. 

Every time Bowers or his gang pushed Stan or one of his friends into a locker, calling them “queer” or “fag” it was a reminder. A warning. 

Richie… was his first thought, and he was sure that Richie would take him in, let him stay at his place. 

But he could never tell Richie the truth, never. 

Because he was scared that Richie would laugh at him, or worse, explode angrily at him. 

“What the fuck? What’s wrong with you? Get out, get the fuck away from me!” 

The thought of Richie saying that to him, or anything along those lines snapped Stan right out of his rebellious daydream. 

He was scared his friends already hated him enough, no need to make them really hate him.

~

Stan remembered one day that Bowers had cornered him after school. Usually Stan would meet up with Richie, Eddie, and Bill then, but he had stayed a few minutes after class to talk to the teacher about the assignment that day, and when he walked down the empty hallway, Bowers had appeared almost out of nowhere and pushed him into the wall. 

“Fuck off, Bowers.” 

“Where’s your little fairy friends, huh? Sucking each others dicks without you today, huh?” 

Bowers had pushed Stan violently to the floor, and stood over him tauntingly. 

Stan closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. He always froze up in moments like that, moments where he should be able to defend himself, but Bowers’ words terrified him. 

He knew that Bowers didn’t know his real feelings, but sometimes the things he said hit Stan far too close to home for his comfort. He knew that if word ever got out that Stan really was all those things Bowers called him, it would no longer be getting beat up in the school hallway. 

Bowers definitely would fucking kill him for real. 

So Stan just laid there as Bowers kicked him in the sides, laughing. 

And then Richie had shown up. 

“Hey asshole, leave him alone!” 

Richie ran down the hallway and threw himself at Bowers, who was both taller and stronger than Richie. 

Stan tried to stand up, to call out to Richie, to do anything, but Bowers’ last kick had knocked the wind out of him. 

He can’t recall exactly how long the fight lasted, just Richie’s face leaned in close to his, a worried expression and “Stan? Are you ok?” 

Richie had gotten it pretty bad, a punch to the nose nose combined with a cut on his forehead made him a bloody mess, his face gleaming red and his shirt stained with drops of blood. His eye was also shut and puffy, and Stan felt incredibly guilty; it was him Bowers had targeted originally, not Richie. 

Yet Richie was sporting a huge grin as he rode his bike alongside Stan and laughing at who knows what as they pulled into Stan’s driveway. 

Stan had pulled the other boy into the bathroom, standing on his toes to reach into the cabinet for anything he could find to help Richie’s bleeding face. 

“I’m fine Stanley, you don’t need to pull an Eddie right now.” 

Speaking of Eddie, Stan thought, wonder where him and Bill are? It was usually the four of them after class, but he didn’t mention it to Richie, secretly cherishing the private moment. 

Was it selfish? Stan wondered. 

Was it wrong to want to be alone with Richie?

Of course it was, it was wrong and weird and surely Richie wished the others were there to lighten up the mood, he thought as he closed the cabinet door dejectedly, not finding where his parents kept the bandaids.

“Thanks for what you did back there.” Stan said, not wanting the silence to get awkward. 

Richie just smiled, not his toothy grin that he’d give after a dirty joke, but a soft smile that made Stan look at the floor shyly. He noticed that Richie was sometimes quieter when the two of them were alone, and it was peaceful, made Stan feel comfortable; yet he still had the nagging worry that he was a bore. 

Richie was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, blood dripping from the cut on his forehead and pooling around his mouth as Stan knelt in front of him with a wet paper towel. 

He suddenly felt very nervous, like he was about to overstep a line. 

Upon thinking about it later that night (and then dwelling on it for weeks afterward), Stan realized he didn’t think to simply hand the towel to Richie to wipe his face with. 

‘Obviously that would have been the logical thing to do, fuck Stan, why’d you have to be so fucking weird about it?’

But instead, Stan reached out his hand and gently pushed Richie’s hair out of his face, then brought the towel to his face to wipe away the blood. Richie didn’t speak, neither did Stan, who wished he knew what the other boy was thinking. 

He had never been this close to him before, and all Stan could think about was how beautiful Richie was. Without his glasses, he had a look of almost vulnerability, and as Stan was staring at his face, Richie looked up from the floor right into his eyes. Stan felt overwhelmed by it all, Richie’s gaze, their closeness, the softness of Richie’s hair in Stan’s hand, and he looked away nervously. 

After he was done, Stan backed up and watched Richie’s hair fall messily back over his forehead, and he hoped he would remember that moment forever, because that kind of intimacy would probably never happen again. 

~

Richie was the only person who would go birdwatching with Stan.

The hobby was something that had always embarrassed Stan; his parents found it a waste of time, telling him that he was a boy, he should be playing a sport, soccer maybe, or baseball. 

But birdwatching was what he loved, he enjoyed the calm of it, the natural serenity of seeing the creatures in their natural habitats. Wandering into the woods, or an empty park, was like entering another world for Stan, away from the drama of school or the constant pressures of his home, where it was only him and the birds.

People at school would laugh at him if they found out, just another thing for Bowers and his crew to torment him with, so the only people who knew about Stan’s hobby, other than his parents, were his friends. 

It wasn’t that they had laughed at him, far from it in fact. His friends had told him that it was really cool, and from then on, whenever a bird happened to fly by while they were hanging out, they’d all look at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell them what kind it was. 

But Richie had taken it a step farther, when one day he called Stan at his house. 

“Hello?” 

“Stan the man! Hey, it’s Richie!” 

“Hi!” Stan’s mood always increased when Richie called. 

“I remember you said something yesterday about going birdwatching today? Did you want some company?” 

Stan didn’t know what to say. For one thing, he was shocked that Richie had even heard him mention it the day before. He had said it quietly, and the others were laughing about something else, so he thought it went over all of their heads. And then the main thing, Richie really wanted to go look at birds with him? 

“Yeah, you could come if you want. You don’t have plans with Bill or Eddie?” 

“Nope! Plus I’ve never been birdwatching before, you’ll have to show me what to do!” 

Stan didn’t know what Richie was expecting, and was scared as he rode his bike to the woods that the other boy would get bored fast, and laugh at him for thinking it was fun.   
But Richie was already there waiting for him, with sandwiches in tow. 

“I brought three, two for us and one for the birds. I wasn’t sure if we feed them or just look at them.” 

Stan smiled, because bringing an extra peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the birds was such a Richie thing to do. 

The two of them sat on the blanket Stan had brought, and he showed Richie his Encyclopedia of Birds he was borrowing from the library. 

“Great tit? Great tit!? That’s my kind of bird!” 

Stan rolled his eyes as Richie laughed at his own joke, which made him laugh also. 

He was surprised at how interested Richie seemed as Stan pointed out certain birds he saw, how Richie was looking at him intently as he explained the bird’s features and his small head nods of “yeah, I get it.” 

The time flew by with Richie’s company, and Stan went home feeling happier than he had felt all week. 

~

Just like how Stan was the “quiet one”, Richie was the “funny one”. He always had a joke on the tip of his tongue, which made everyone around him laugh. He liked attention, that was easy to see, liked having all eyes on him. 

Stan would watch as he bantered with Eddie, secretly jealous of the way Eddie was able to combat Richie’s jokes. 

“Had a hot date last night, Kaspbrak!”

“Oh yeah, with who?” 

“Just ask your mother tonight.” 

“I won’t be able to, tonight I’ll be busy with your aunt, Trashmouth.” 

Stan wished he was funnier, that he could come up with witty comebacks for whenever Richie said something like that to him, which was often. Yet in the moment, Stan’s mind would always go blank, and instead of risking saying something stupid and embarassing himself, he’d say “Shut up, Richie” or “Beep beep” or just roll his eyes. 

More and more, Stan found himself wishing he was cooler in front of Richie, wanting to one day say something so funny it earned a laugh from him, because Richie’s laugh was becoming Stan’s favorite sound. He loved stealing glances at the other boy when the group of friends went out somewhere, seeing his smile or his laugh and wishing it was him that made Richie that happy. And then Stan would glance nervously at the others, making sure they didn’t notice him staring at Richie, terrified that one day they would notice, and they’d tell Richie, who would call Stan a “creep” or “fucking weird” or something just as hurtful. 

But for all his “Shut up”s and his “Beep beep Richie”s, on nights when his parent’s harsh words really affected him, and he’d lay in bed on the brink of tears, he would re-play Richie’s jokes in his head, and they were enough to hold back his tears until he fell asleep. 

~ 

His bar mitzvah was something Stan had been dreading for months. It was supposed to be a celebration, a cause for him to be happy, something to bring him closer to friends and family. But there was only tension in his home, his parents always making sure he knew how upset they were that he wasn’t doing this, or that, or wan’t reading the Torah enough, or whatever it was that day. When he told his friends about the bar mitzvah, they seemed eager enough to learn what it was all about, crowding around Stan at lunch and asking him questions about what exactly it means. It made him feel better about it all, like if his friends were there supporting him, it would be easier. 

Yet as the big day got nearer and nearer, Stan was a mess. 

It was hardly the most important thing on his mind, him and his friends had encountered a fucking demon, or monster, or whatever IT was, for god’s sake. 

But the ceremony was all his parents would talk about, and after the fight Bill and Richie had, the “Losers” were pretty much disbanded. They weren’t hanging out anymore, or if they were, they didn’t tell Stan, which meant that he was around his mom and dad a lot more than usual. 

“Stanley, you know how important tomorrow is don’t you?” His dad had said in a stern voice at the dinner table the night before. 

“Yes sir.”

“I don’t want you embarrassing me, you hear? You haven’t been reading the Torah nearly as much as you should, why is that?” His eyes staring at Stan harshly. 

“I’ve been trying my best.” 

“I want you reading it all night. You hear me, Stanley?” 

Stan nodded, trying to think of the last time his dad had told him he loved him and failing. 

The next day, none of his friends came to his bar mitzvah except Richie.

As much as he pretended it didn’t matter, it crushed him that the rest of them didn’t show, that they didn’t even call to tell him they wouldn’t be there. 

He knew how Eddie’s mom was, how she was definitely keeping him on lock down after he broke his arm, but he could have at least called. 

But seeing Richie there made his heart burst. He gave Stan a huge, goofy smile as he walked to the front of the synagogue, and began reading from the Torah. 

Stan didn’t really know why he said it, didn’t even know he had it in him until the words were spilling out of his mouth, and he heard shocked gasps come from the adults in the pews. 

“I know I’m a loser, and no matter what, I always fucking will be.” 

Someone was clapping, and Stan glanced at the pews to see Richie, standing and clapping as his mother tried to quiet him. They made eye contact before Stan ran out of the church, regretting immediately what he had just said. 

Stan was walking as fast as he could down the street, panicking because he didn’t know where to go. His dad was gonna kill him, he couldn’t go back home, not now at least, not after that. 

“Stan!” 

Richie was running after him, and clapped him on the shoulder when he caught up to him. 

“Dude, that was fucking awesome!” 

Richie was smiling, but Stan had tears forming in his eyes, and was trying to control himself. 

‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.’ 

Stan was humiliated, how had his bar mitzvah turned into such a mess?

Why did he have to ruin everything? 

He struggled to breathe as he started to sob, and Richie’s arms were around him as they sunk to the ground together. 

“Stan, it’s ok. You’re ok.” 

Richie was whispering the words in his ear as he held him, letting him cry. 

Stan felt disgusting; he hated crying in front of anyone, especially Richie.

“My dads gonna kill me, I can’t go home.” Stan could barely get the words out through his shaky breathing. 

“We can go to my place.” 

Richie was helping Stan to his feet, with his arms still wrapped around him. 

“But my moms gonna be home,” Richie frowned. “Let’s go to the clubhouse.” 

Stan hadn’t thought of that; his idea of the clubhouse Ben had built them was that it was the hangout place for all seven of them. He had never been there without the rest of the group, and the thought of just him and Richie being there was nice. 

He didn’t speak as they walked, Richie’s arm slung around Stan’s shoulder, guiding him almost. 

They got to the empty clubhouse and Stan sunk dramatically to the ground. 

“Hey, it’s ok Stan.” Richie’s voice was softer than usual, hearing it made Stan jerk his head up to see the other boy kneeling in front of him. “I think what you did was pretty badass.” 

“Well I don’t. I wish I didn’t fucking say it. I don’t know why I did.” 

Richie reached out and wiped Stan’s cheek with his hand, making Stan flush up and stammer. 

“I hate my parents, Rich. They make me feel like crap all the time, and I’ve made it worse. This was gonna be my big day, and I fucked it all up.” 

He didn’t mean to open up like this in front of Richie, in fact opening up to anyone was an insecurity of Stan’s. He was already the quiet one, the weird one, the boring one, he didn’t want to be the baby as well. 

“I didn’t know it was so bad with them.” 

“It is. They want me to be this perfect son, they have this idea of what I should be, but it’s impossible and it’s not me. I want to run away sometimes, but where would I go? I’m stuck with them.” 

“Hey.” Stan was looking at the floor, and Richie’s hand suddenly on the side of his face brought his gaze up, to look the other boy in the eyes. “Hey, you’re gonna be ok. You’re the best person I know, Stan, I swear. Who cares what they think, I think you’re fucking smart, and amazing, and just fucking the best. You can always call me, you know. Or if it’s at night, just show up at my house and I can sneak out. We can talk, or come here, or, I don’t fucking know, go get hamburgers at 2 a.m. from the Steak and Shake. My point is, you don’t ever have to be alone if you don’t wanna be.” 

Stan didn’t know what to say. 

No one had ever said something like that to him, made him feel appreciated like Richie. He was still upset about the bar mitzvah, still terrified to go home and face his parents, but Richie’s words had made him feel a lot better. And just the fact that Richie had shown up for it all, and that Richie was there now, with his hair combed and wearing a baby blue suit jacket in the filthy clubhouse was enough to make Stan smile a little. 

“Thanks, Richie. And thanks for coming.” 

“Of course I came. It was the highlight of my summer Stan the man.” 

Stan was suddenly overcome by a strong desire to tell Richie he loved him.

But he didn’t, he couldn’t. 

He wouldn’t ruin their friendship; he didn’t know what he would do without Richie. 

~

After defeating Pennywise, Stan and Richie started spending a lot more time together. 

Stan had nightmares, there was barely a night that went by that he didn’t wake up clutching the blankets, tears in his eyes, images of blood and corpses and IT fresh on his mind. 

It was surprisingly easy to forget it all during the day, to let it slip out of his mind, but at night it all came back. One night Stan’s dad had burst into his room because he heard screaming, and when he had woken Stan up, the boy could hardly speak through his gasps. 

“What happened? Stanley, what’s going on?”

But Stan couldn’t possibly explain it to his father; there was no one he could talk to about it except the Losers. And it was a kind of unspoken rule among them to never bring it up when they hung out. 

One evening, Stan called Richie. It was one of those bad nights, with his parents making him feel like shit, and he just didn’t want to be alone. He never forgot Richie’s offer that he had made after the bar mitzvah. 

‘You don’t ever have to be alone if you don’t want to.’

Stan had ended up spending the night at Richie’s, sleeping on a pile of pillows and blankets they had piled on the floor into a makeshift bed. 

Being with Richie made everything so easy, Stan found. 

He didn’t have to think about his parents, he felt worlds away from them and their disappointment that always loomed over him at home. And he didn’t think about Pennywise either; it was a separate universe whenever he was with the other boy, a universe that gravitated around Richie and his nonstop jokes and his smiles and everything about him that was so perfect. 

They had sleepovers a lot, sometimes at Richie’s and sometimes at Stan’s, and it helped Stan. He found it easier to fall asleep with Richie just a mattress away. He’d doze off thinking of the fun they’d had, playing board games or listening to Richie’s vinyl records or watching movies. One routine they had gotten into was raiding the Blockbuster every Friday night for as many movies as they could afford, and then watching them together. Richie would pick comedies, and Stan would never admit it but he loved sneaking glances at Richie during them, watching him laugh at the jokes. Richie would always tell the jokes to the rest of the Losers the next time they all met up, pretending they were his own original lines, but giving Stan a look of ‘only me and you know what it’s really from.’ 

Stan sometimes picked out documentaries, loving the wildlife ones in particular, but it was an unspoken rule between the two of them that horror movies were off limits.   
Some nights, Stan would have trouble falling asleep even with Richie there, and he would lie on the edge of his bed and look at Richie as he slept. He knew it was creepy and weird, and he only let himself do it for a few minutes before turning over, embarrassed, thinking ‘what if he’s awake too and saw me looking’. 

One night, Richie was spending the night at Stans’, and he was laying on the floor among a pile of blankets and pillows they had gathered from the house. It was late; Stan knew he shouldn’t be up, but as was often the case, he just couldn’t fall asleep. If he was asleep, he probably wouldn’t have heard it, but he did. 

Richie’s shaky breathing, quiet sobs. 

Stan quietly turned over in his bed to look at the other boy with concern, and found Richie curled in on himself in a way Stan hadn’t seen him before. He looked so vulnerable, so small, and Stan recognized the symptoms of a nightmare. 

It shocked him, seeing Richie like that, because for all the times they had spent the night at each other’s houses, Stan had never seen Richie having a nightmare; or maybe he just never noticed it because he was already asleep? Of course Richie was just as traumatized as him, Stan thought as he watched Richie shaking on the floor, he went through just as much shit as Stan did. 

And yet Stan felt frozen in his bed as he heard Richie murmuring “no, no” as he lay in a ball. He didn’t know what to do to help him; he thought he probably ought to wake him up, give him a glass of water like they do in movies when someone is freaking out, but that’s not what he ended up doing. 

The next morning, he blamed it on his own sleep deprivation, he really wasn’t thinking clearly, he’d tell himself.

Stan quietly stepped out of his bed and crouched down next to Richie, who was still whimpering. He slid his sheet off his own bed and covered Richie, then lay down right there, nervously wrapping his arms around the boy next to him. He was scared that Richie would jump up instantly at Stan’s action, yell at him, wake his parents, completely ruin Stan’s life or something, but Richie was still asleep as Stan ran his hand over his head, softly moving the hair out of his eyes. Richie was sweating, but Stan didn’t care, he just laid there next to him, closer than he had ever been to the other boy before, and held him. 

It was overwhelming to Stan, being that close to Richie, practically holding him. It was something he had secretly wished for since they had started having sleepovers that summer, yet with Richie shaking like a leaf, Stan felt more hopeless than ever. 

“Hey, Rich, you’re ok. I’m here, and you’re ok.” Stan whispered the words, his own voice shaking, and pulled Richie closer. He noticed that he seemed to be calming down, his breathing still erratic and heavy, but his body seeming to relax slightly. 

Stan felt suddenly exhausted himself, and he laid his head down on the pillow next to Richie. He wasn’t planning on falling asleep, he was going to go back to his own bed before morning, before Richie could catch him like that, but Stan ended up staying there with Richie all night, breathing in the smell of his hair and feeling perfectly comfortable with the other boy nestled in his arms. 

Stan woke up first in the morning; thankfully Richie was still fast asleep, looking much better than he had that night. He was breathing normally, his mouth hanging open slightly in a way that Stan would have surely found gross had it been anyone else. He noticed when he woke up that they must have shifted around in the night, because it was now Richie’s arm that was draped across Stan’s stomach and Richie’s head on Stan’s shoulder. 

He could have laid there forever like that, but with the sunlight starting to stream into the room from the window, Stan felt paranoid. He was scared that his mom or dad would randomly open the door and see them like that, because god that would be a disaster. 

But he was even more scared that Richie would wake up, and Stan would have to explain why they were laying together. What if he stopped being his friend? What if he called him the names Bowers called him, names that would be ten times more crushing to hear coming from Richie’s mouth? What if he told all the others and they all stopped talking to him?   
Stan slid out of Richie’s arm and crept back up to his own bed, feeling stupid without any sheet but not wanting to take his off of Richie. He lay there for what felt like hours, thinking about how close he had been to Richie the last night, how scared the other boy had seemed, how his body had been shaking, how soft his skin and hair had been, and fuck, Stan hated himself. He hoped more than anything that when Richie woke up, he wouldn’t remember anything from that night, that he had stayed sound asleep for it all. 

~

Sure enough, the day went on as if nothing occurred; Richie didn’t act any different and Stan tried his best to pretend it had never happened. Yet a few days later, Richie called up Stan and asked if he could spend the night again. It wasn’t until later that night, as the two boys were laying in their respective beds (Stan in his bed and Richie on the floor) that Richie said in an almost timid voice “I have nightmares a lot, you know.” 

“Me too.” 

Richie didn’t say anything else, and Stan’s mind was running at a hundred miles an hour. He was worried Richie remembered the other night, embarrassed and unsure what to say or do, yet internally longing for that closeness again. 

“You could sleep up here if you wanted to.” Stan offered, and what he meant by that was that Richie could take the bed and he’d move to the floor. 

But when Richie hopped onto the bed and flopped dramatically onto his back, Stan couldn’t force himself to move, to get up. He was a bundle of nerves with the other boy laying next to him, and he must have been staring intently at the ceiling until Richie asked “What are you thinking about?” 

Stan turned his head to look at his friend and saw Richie looking at him intently, making Stan blush and panic, as if Richie was some sort of mind reader that knew Stan’s secret. 

“Nothing, just, I don’t know.” 

Stan hated how dumb he must have sounded and how awkward he must be acting and turned his head around on the pillow so he wasn’t facing Richie. It was enough to feel Richie’s shoulder slightly touching his own, to know how close the other boy was laying to him, and Stan eventually dozed off. 

~

The next morning, Stan woke to Richie looking at him. They were facing each other in Stan’s bed, and although it happened in only a second, Stan was sure he saw Richie’s eyes sqeeze shut as soon as Stan’s opened. It made him feel self conscious, and then he started doubting himself, he had probably imagined it happened at all. 

“Richie?” 

“Yeah?” 

“You awake?”

“Yeah.” 

Richie’s eyes opened to meet Stan’s, and Stan suddenly didn’t know what to say. He just looked at Richie, who looked right back. 

Seeing Richie in that moment, Stan knew that he could be honest with him. Would he feel the same way? Probably not. Would he be weirded out? Probably. But would he stop being Stan’s friend? No, of course not. It’s Richie, Richie who had been Stan’s best friend since they were little kids. Richie, who showed up to Stan’s bar mitzvah when none of his other friends did. Richie, who’d sneak out past midnight to let Stan vent to him in the dirty 24 hour diner and then pay for their fries even though he’s just as broke as Stan. It was Richie, it was always Richie.

“Can I tell you something?” Stan whispered, directing his gaze to the cross on the wall so he wasn’t looking at Richie’s face anymore. 

“Anything, Stan the man.” 

“I like you a lot Rich. You’re my best friend ever and this might be weird to say but I think I have a crush on you.” 

The words tumbled out of Stan’s mouth so fast, he knew if he had paused even once he would have regretted it, not finished what he wanted to say. 

“Stan.” 

Stan heard Richie take a deep breath, and was ready to be crushed with Richie’s inevitable rejection. 

“I feel the same way.” 

Stan was shocked to say the least, and whipped his head to look at Richie’s face, make sure that he had heard right, that the other boy was being serious, because this couldn’t be real. 

Richie smiled at Stan’s reaction, a nervous smile that grew when Stan blushed and smiled back. 

“Seriously?” 

“Yes, I’ve been trying to flirt with you for like forever! Finally!” Richie was beaming as he looked at Stan, both boys suddenly feeling more confident. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Stan asked. 

Richie was always the one to speak first, never ashamed, always ready to blurt out his opinion. 

“I don’t know, I was just scared to I guess. With Bowers and everyone else in Derry against me, I didn’t want to risk making you hate me too.” 

Stan understood. 

He understood because he had felt the exact same way, had the same fear as Richie, the same sadness and heartache. 

They lay there in silence for a while, shoulders brushing together in Stan’s bed. 

It wasn’t an awkward silence by any means; for Stan it was peace, serenity. He felt like all his burdens and trauma and fear were gone in that moment, he was happy. 

He eventually asked Richie, “so what now?” 

Richie shrugged comically, then said “wanna go watch some birds?” 

~

The two ended up trekking into the woods hand in hand, binoculars around their necks and laughing as they walked. It would be birdwatching that day, maybe the arcade tomorrow, who knows what after that, but Stan was happier than he had felt in months. Richie made him feel valid, appreciated, and Stan wanted to express to him just how much he meant to him. But for that moment, he just squeezed Richie’s hand and smiled, because for as powerless and insignificant as he usually felt, with Richie’s hand in his own, Stan was ready to take on the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago when chapter 2 was the hype, wish I hadn't forgot to upload it back then but theres always time for some stozier I guess. and YES most of my other fics are reddie but we all know stozier just hits different sometimes. I love that funky bird boy <3


End file.
